Property | Strategic Pivot: Megaworld’s ₱1.48B Move Signals New Era for PH Tourism

Real estate leader Megaworld is sharpening its business focus by divesting its ₱1.48-billion stake in Suntrust Resort Holdings. This tactical shift allows the developer to concentrate on its core property ventures while empowering Suntrust to accelerate the development of world-class tourism hubs, such as the Westside City Integrated Resort in Parañaque.

Elevating the Luxury Experience

The emergence of "integrated resorts" is redefining the Philippine travel landscape. By blending high-end gaming, luxury retail, and elite dining with cultural attractions, the country is set to attract high-value travelers from the United States, Japan, South Korea, and China. Global hospitality giants like Marriott, Hilton, and Shangri-La continue to expand their presence, ensuring the infrastructure meets international demand.

Global Connectivity on the Rise

Airlines are already responding to this anticipated influx of visitors:

• International Carriers: Emirates, Korean Air, and Cathay Pacific are ramping up capacity and direct links to Manila and other key cities.

• Local Expansion: Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific, and AirAsia are broadening their networks to make the islands more accessible than ever.

Beyond the Beach

While iconic spots like Boracay, Palawan, and Siargao remain top draws, the Philippines is also making a name for itself in MICE tourism (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions). Major venues like the SMX Convention Center and World Trade Center are hosting an increasing number of global events, further diversifying the arrival base.

The Bottom Line: Megaworld’s exit from Suntrust is a vote of confidence in the country's tourism potential. As airline routes expand and luxury infrastructure matures, the Philippines is firmly securing its spot as a premier global destination.

Techies | Outsourcing Is Reshaping the Philippines' Cities

  

Google

The ability to outsource all kinds of business processes is creating massive, vertical company towns in the suburbs.

Outsourcing is, in some ways, an old story: Cheap labor pulls in global corporations in search of profits. But it's playing out in diverse ways in different countries and industries.

Recently, the creation of what I call cyborg telemarketers drew my attention to the burgeoning call center and outsourcing scene in the Philippines. But the scale of the phenomenon continues to astound me.

Megaworld, a developer that creates properties for "business process outsourcing" (BPO) companies is investing $5 billion into creating 10 "townships" for these corporations and their workers.

Those townships will constitute some 16 million new square feet of office space over the next ten years, according to Bloomberg. But the offices are merely the centerpieces of entire planned communities of homes and shops.

BPO workers need to live close to their offices because they are usually operating on the time of another country, probably one halfway across the world. And the shops they frequent, I assume, must also understand that the place is operating in (at least) two time zones at once.

Megaworld is following the model set by its development called Eastwood, a 40-acre site eight miles from the center of Manila that draws 100,000 people every day.

"Megaworld is duplicating Eastwood in six other parts of Manila," Bloomberg reports, "and building other developments in Lapu Lapu, Iloilo and Davao, cities in central and southern Philippines."

The sites will be dense and tall, casting long shadows over the rest of the low-slung Manila suburbs, just like Eastwood does now.

Who knows what will become of areas like this in 40 years, but for now, they're as distinctive a marker of a certain kind of business (and technical) operation as the smoke stacks of the Rust Belt or the sloped roofs of Pizza Hut.


source: The Atlantic